Time for dropbox users to upload all kinds of crap for ai to “learn” from, all within tos of course.
I bet there are many kinds of ways to make your files poison the ai learning data. Its going to be fun for those ai guys to sort which files are probably safe and which are not. I think even if ONE user manages to slip something that corrupts the training data and its not noticed soon enough it might cause problems for them. Though someone who actually knows something about the subject might want to tell if i’m talking shit or not.
I’m not against ai in general, but if its trained with data that was obtained from unwilling people, like this, then its makers can fuck off.
If someone has a way to poison their AI training by adding junk along my regular files I’m interested. Sadly I use it at work and I cannot decide to migrate to another cloud so I better sabotage them
If your business is using Dropbox as cloud storage, you are so fucked!
In 2015, I worked in a company that stored financial records. Small restaurant company with 80 employees. I emailed them last week about this and they’re already making moves to leave.
If you aren’t aware rclone makes it easy to backup (copy) or sync files to different cloud providers like Dropbox and you can setup encryption very easily so you can continue using Dropbox since it does have pretty good value for the price even though they’ve shown they aren’t trustworthy.
You can easily repurpose old drives for this. I started my server scavenging drives and using my laptop. I upgraded to some WD NAS HDD and I’m about to upgrade to a better Synology NAS.
There are options for people wanting to start hosting.
Response from dropbox in that post: “Jumping in to clarify some confusion. The AI third-party toggle is only visible to users who have access to our AI features. If you don’t see the AI third-party toggle, then you can’t view or use Dropbox AI features. To reiterate, neither this nor any other setting automatically or passively sends any Dropbox customer data to a third-party AI service. Please see our Help Center article for a list of those with access to Dropbox AI features.”
Happy I moved to Syncthing a long time ago. My data is replicated on several locations and instances on cheap old raspberries+drives and syncs instantly even on my phone, where I keep Obsidian notes. No size limits, no huge hassle, 10 minutes to get a new instance set up.
Every now and then I will rsync the encrypted version to an offline drive and store it somewhere else.
Syncthing has built-in encryption and works pretty well, it’s also really easy to use. I have been using it for some time with several instances and never had a problem, it requires more CPU though, so some old raspies had a hard time working with my big photos folder (800GB) when encrypted. On instances that are not encrypted, the full HDD is encrypted (the option you have when installing Linux).
Not sure how secure it is, but from the docs: Encryption is XChaCha20-Poly1305 and AES-SIV with a key derived from the password and folder ID using scrypt. Considering how polished, huge user base and how much attention to detail Syncthing has, I trust it’s good enough for my needs.
I tried to use them recently and their service had some problems.
They have an option to “stream” files when you need them. The only problem is you need an internet connection to access them. I did not trust this kind of system and I actually need to access my files even without internet.
So there is a way to make the files available offline. Great! Problem solves. NOPE! They offer an option to have your files available offline, but they might remove the files and make them only available in the cloud if you local storage gets low.
That is really all they say about it and there is no option to turn this off. I was uncomfortable about their vagueness and my inability to disable this.
Within 24 hours of paying for their service I learned of this and they refused to refund my purchase.
I’ve had a great experience with Dropbox (for about 10 years!), but I also used their Linux client which is old and very straightforward. Now I’m a Nextcloud user, and I wish it worked as well as Dropbox did. But with this AI thing I’m not switching back.
I’ve used Dropbox since literally their first year of creation and I’ve never experienced a single one of these issues. I use it mostly as a portable library and all I need is 2 mins of any internet connection to download any book(s) I want to read to a local device. Mind you this is on their free plan, so I’ve never paid a cent to them either. Requires me to periodically transfer older books to another long term solution, but that is just a few mouse clicks. I’ve read hundreds if not more ebooks this way. Since I prefer .mobi (which I can even read IN dropbox if I want) I can upload straight to dropbox after converting from .epub.
I mean, it sounds frustrating, but your experience with them sounds extremely weird to me.
At least to me they’ve been the best cloud provider by far, for what it’s worth.
With that said, I don’t especially like that they’re doing this even though my specific content is mostly available in any number of places anyway, given that it’s literature.
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Time for dropbox users to upload all kinds of crap for ai to “learn” from, all within tos of course.
I bet there are many kinds of ways to make your files poison the ai learning data. Its going to be fun for those ai guys to sort which files are probably safe and which are not. I think even if ONE user manages to slip something that corrupts the training data and its not noticed soon enough it might cause problems for them. Though someone who actually knows something about the subject might want to tell if i’m talking shit or not.
I’m not against ai in general, but if its trained with data that was obtained from unwilling people, like this, then its makers can fuck off.
Now I feel tempted to make a Dropbox account and fill it with gigabytes of noise data…
Literally the first sentence of your own source:
I have my dick pics in there wtf is AI going to learn
What hotdogs look like, obviously
If someone has a way to poison their AI training by adding junk along my regular files I’m interested. Sadly I use it at work and I cannot decide to migrate to another cloud so I better sabotage them
This situation is so ridiculous
I said this in another post:
If your business is using Dropbox as cloud storage, you are so fucked!
In 2015, I worked in a company that stored financial records. Small restaurant company with 80 employees. I emailed them last week about this and they’re already making moves to leave.
your files?
your files? LOL
Don’t forget, Dropbox belongs to Microsoft. The harddisks where “your” files are stored belong to Microsoft.
So are there any files that an AI shouldn’t vacuum up that I just happen to have in my dropbox?
Anything private or financial
If you aren’t aware rclone makes it easy to backup (copy) or sync files to different cloud providers like Dropbox and you can setup encryption very easily so you can continue using Dropbox since it does have pretty good value for the price even though they’ve shown they aren’t trustworthy.
https://rclone.org/dropbox/ https://rclone.org/crypt/ https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/ https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_sync/
Best time for people to learn about home servers.
I used to pay for Dropbox about a decade ago, I replaced it with a raspberry pi running syncthing with an USB drive attached to it
Cost prohibitive for many, but yes, people need to get off someone else’s computer.
You can easily repurpose old drives for this. I started my server scavenging drives and using my laptop. I upgraded to some WD NAS HDD and I’m about to upgrade to a better Synology NAS.
There are options for people wanting to start hosting.
The idea that many people have old drives is already assuming a lot.
Response from dropbox in that post: “Jumping in to clarify some confusion. The AI third-party toggle is only visible to users who have access to our AI features. If you don’t see the AI third-party toggle, then you can’t view or use Dropbox AI features. To reiterate, neither this nor any other setting automatically or passively sends any Dropbox customer data to a third-party AI service. Please see our Help Center article for a list of those with access to Dropbox AI features.”
I don’t know why I find it so surprising that Dropbox apparently has a Hacker News account, but I am mindblown that’s a thing.
I thought HN would be way too niche for that to be a thing.
Happy I moved to Syncthing a long time ago. My data is replicated on several locations and instances on cheap old raspberries+drives and syncs instantly even on my phone, where I keep Obsidian notes. No size limits, no huge hassle, 10 minutes to get a new instance set up.
Every now and then I will rsync the encrypted version to an offline drive and store it somewhere else.
What do you use for encryption? I’m open to options for encryption. Any opinions about Veracrypt?
Syncthing has built-in encryption and works pretty well, it’s also really easy to use. I have been using it for some time with several instances and never had a problem, it requires more CPU though, so some old raspies had a hard time working with my big photos folder (800GB) when encrypted. On instances that are not encrypted, the full HDD is encrypted (the option you have when installing Linux).
Not sure how secure it is, but from the docs: Encryption is XChaCha20-Poly1305 and AES-SIV with a key derived from the password and folder ID using scrypt. Considering how polished, huge user base and how much attention to detail Syncthing has, I trust it’s good enough for my needs.
Would your photos folder be handled quicker if you split it into two seperate folders of say, 400 gigs each?
Thanks I forgot I even had a dropbox account. And everything is deleted files and account.
I HATE Dropbox.
I tried to use them recently and their service had some problems.
They have an option to “stream” files when you need them. The only problem is you need an internet connection to access them. I did not trust this kind of system and I actually need to access my files even without internet.
So there is a way to make the files available offline. Great! Problem solves. NOPE! They offer an option to have your files available offline, but they might remove the files and make them only available in the cloud if you local storage gets low.
That is really all they say about it and there is no option to turn this off. I was uncomfortable about their vagueness and my inability to disable this.
Within 24 hours of paying for their service I learned of this and they refused to refund my purchase.
PLEASE NEVER WORK WITH DROPBOX
I’ve had a great experience with Dropbox (for about 10 years!), but I also used their Linux client which is old and very straightforward. Now I’m a Nextcloud user, and I wish it worked as well as Dropbox did. But with this AI thing I’m not switching back.
I’ve used Dropbox since literally their first year of creation and I’ve never experienced a single one of these issues. I use it mostly as a portable library and all I need is 2 mins of any internet connection to download any book(s) I want to read to a local device. Mind you this is on their free plan, so I’ve never paid a cent to them either. Requires me to periodically transfer older books to another long term solution, but that is just a few mouse clicks. I’ve read hundreds if not more ebooks this way. Since I prefer .mobi (which I can even read IN dropbox if I want) I can upload straight to dropbox after converting from .epub.
I mean, it sounds frustrating, but your experience with them sounds extremely weird to me.
At least to me they’ve been the best cloud provider by far, for what it’s worth.
With that said, I don’t especially like that they’re doing this even though my specific content is mostly available in any number of places anyway, given that it’s literature.
removed by mod
I’ll never work with them again and actively. Advocate against them.